Happy birthday

Today we celebrated Devin’s 11th birthday. He wanted to do breakfast in the room, so we ordered room service. When we finished eating, Liz and I arranged a treasure hunt for him throughout the ship. We planted clues that led him from one location to another and eventually back to his room to find his gift. The gift was a newly-planned excursion to see Amazon River (or “pink”) dolphins from Manaus. He’s very excited about seeing the dolphins.

Alter do Chao was our first tender port, so we gathered in the Insignia Lounge to get our boarding tickets. We were in the second group and were on our way to shore about twenty minutes after the 11:00 anchoring. Alter do Chao is a small town that is apparently a vacation destination for Brazilians. The main lure is a spit of land that sticks out into the river with sandy beach on both sides. You can walk through the town down to the water and get a canoe to take you over for 3 rial per person (about $0.75 US). We went over and found a shady spot to hang out. DJ was immediately in the water, and I soon joined him as it was hot and the water felt nice. We waded up and down the shore where tables for the beachfront bars and restaurants are set up literally in the water.

We checked out some of the menus, but they were all very heavily geared to fish, so we just skipped lunch. We did get a couple of cokes for the boys, though. We stayed a couple of hours then wandered back to town and boarded a return tender to Insignia.

When we returned from our shore outing, we found that our interior room had been decorated for DJ’s birthday. We got cleaned up and then went up to Toscana for a celebratory dinner. The food was delicious, the service excellent, and we all really enjoyed it. The staff presented Deven with a cake and sang happy birthday to him. I think he’ll remember this one.Read more